Tax preparation software programs (hereinafter referred to as “tax programs”) are available from various vendors that assist users in preparing accurate Federal and/or State income tax returns and other tax forms. These tax programs may guide the user through income, property, sales, or other type of tax return processes for a governmental entity or agency (e.g., Federal, State, county, city, district, or other municipality) step-by-step, and may automatically perform necessary tax preparations in accordance with user-entered data input, forms, schedules, and tax data, tables, and formulas stored with or coded into the program. Personal and/or business tax programs may be provided. In addition, both personal and professional versions of these programs may be offered. Professional versions may be used by tax preparation professionals to prepare various tax returns for multiple customers. Further, these tax programs may be used to prepare annual taxes, quarterly taxes, etc.
Tax programs typically include electronic tax documents—the various forms, schedules, worksheets, etc. needed to prepare and file tax returns, which may be stored and accessed as electronic documents. For example, Federal tax return forms that may be provided may include, but are not limited to, 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ, 1040NR, and 1040X forms. In addition, various tax forms and schedules for various States may be included. These electronic tax return documents may be graphically presented by the tax program to the tax preparer on a display device (e.g., a computer monitor). Typically, a tax program will provide a user interface with various user interface mechanisms (menus, dialog boxes, etc.) and user-selectable interface items (menu items, buttons, controls, text entry boxes, etc.) whereby the preparer may access the documents as needed and enter and/or modify data on the various tax documents using one or more data entry/cursor control mechanisms, such as a keyboard and mouse. Typically, these electronic documents are presented on the user interface as templates that, when partially or completely filled out, may be “saved” for the particular taxable entity for which the documents are prepared. Typically, the preparer will enter necessary data and information to the documents via the user interface, and, when done, access the user interface to direct the tax program to complete the preparation of the tax documents.
Instead of or as an alternative to entering the necessary data and information directly to the electronic tax return documents (e.g., directly to a 1040 form), some implementations of tax programs may provide an input mechanism whereby the user inputs the necessary data and information into input fields on data entry displays presented to the user by the tax program. Data and information entered by the user via the input fields may then be automatically transferred into the appropriate locations on the tax return documents. The tax program may perform any necessary calculations using the entered data and information, and possibly data and information from other sources such as previous tax returns, to generate appropriate calculated values for certain fields of the tax return documents.
In some cases, historical tax return information or data for the user (e.g., tax return information or data from a previous year) may be used in preparation of a current tax return. In addition, some tax return information or data may be transferred from one current form to another current form. For example, information or data from a current Federal 1040 form may be transferred to a current State tax return form. Note that some fields on the tax return documents may include values that are calculated by the tax program from entered and/or transferred data in accordance with various formulas for calculating the fields applied by the tax program. Thus, the preparer may not be aware of how certain values on a tax document were calculated, or where the values or the data they were calculated from came from.
Conventionally, tax program vendors have employed telephone support systems for their tax programs. Typically, a telephone support system provides a “1-800” or other such toll-free number through which customers may communicate directly by voice with a support representative. Telephone support systems typically have either a human operator that receives and screens calls from customers with the intent of directing the customers to the correct support representative(s), or an automated “help menu” interface whereby a customer selects from a menu of various options to hopefully connect to the correct support representative to address the customer's questions. Conventional telephone support systems tend to be time consuming for the customer; the customers often have to wait “on hold” for an operator or support representative to answer. In addition, such systems are often difficult for the customers to navigate through to the correct support representative to answer their questions, often resulting in customers ending up talking to the wrong support representative, or having to be redirected elsewhere. Further it may be difficult to track problem areas and to identify high traffic problem areas in the tax program with a telephone support system, as these systems typically have to rely on the support representatives' logging of the customers' calls, which may or may not be performed correctly, and which may involve considerable delay between the logging of the calls and the analysis of the logs.
VoIP
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) refers to a set of facilities that manage the delivery of voice or other audio content over the Internet. Through VoIP, voice information in digital form may be sent over the Internet in discrete packets as an alternative to the traditional circuit-committed protocols of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). An advantage of VoIP and Internet telephony is that VoIP avoids the tolls charged by conventional telephone services.